


Nowt So Queer As Folk

by ThereminVox



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: (1) Gordian knot of experimental writing because I’m nothing if not a riddle personified, Abstraction plus abstraction equals abstraction, Absurdist Humour, Edward and Jervis as my appointed narrators, Egregious Purple Prose, F/M, Surrealist Narrative, Virgin Territory - Freeform, guest starring Jongleur, let’s go with the middle man, otherwise known by his Arabic translation, the twins are 23? 24? 25?, what even is age, with a special appearance from The Demon’s Head, ¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-07-31 02:51:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20107969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereminVox/pseuds/ThereminVox
Summary: ”Sinister smiles and frivolous frowns; facades to convey in these derelict towns.”





	1. (Prologue)

* * *

**INT. CALIGINOUS, SUBFUSC ENCLOSURE**

**TIME: 23:59 PM**

**LOCATION: “THE RED ZONE”**

* * *

Tock...tick.

Tick...tock.

* * *

_Four sedated measures of time and space chiming in rhythmic tandem. _

_Four dimensions of analog tune, amassing vigorous chords of magnitude. _

_Sounds of sedition and retribution. _

_Sounds of iron and oxygen, churning in a crucible of rusted fixture. _

_Chime upon chime of impending implication._

_Chimes of reverberation; _ _cycles of recreation. _

_Time, personified; rathe with insouciance...._

_Befitting to ponder why. _

_Why devote such insistence of sentiment to syzygy?_

* * *

_Perhaps the answer is as ancient and arcane as time itself. _

_By affixing a creative force, an abiding soul, to intricate patterns and connections abound, time weeps to transcend the liminal of temporal transience. _

_By affirming infinite measures of correspondence, millennia, centuries, decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, altogether redefined to sentient elements; by newfound relation may empathy be weighed in equal standing. _

* * *

_Juxtaposed to the incomparable value of time, Dibé Patronymic Doe was a veritable (?)._

_Unprecedented in even measures of form, function and general constitution._

_...Or so her imposter syndrome tells her._

_As far as ‘Sin City’ could see, the tottering toddler of fledgling adulthood would be adjudged as little more than_ _fresh, starry-eyed game for those peckish vultures of incorrigible crime and duplicity._

_Doubly so for the patent of Gotham’s bloodless hamlet. _

_Fortunate for Ms. Doe to be the surviving rara avis of the viper’s first (and final) meal. _

_In a manner of speaking, the aforementioned appellation was merely a bastard cousin to alibi. _

_“Dibé”, by nature and nurture, was, and is, mononymous. _

_For reasons of eschewing the triple D bra of depersonalisation, disassociation and dysmorphia, as well as absconding the boding atrocities of auld lang syne, the ‘banished surname’, of which shall not be named, was largely inapposite in her grand scheme of reinvention. _

_If only she could articulate her thoughts convincingly, in lieu of appeals to topical complexion or base desires for concrete identity. Conveniently, if not assuredly, inspired by indiscriminate virtues of temporal scrutiny. _

_Alas... instead, she’s renounced to designating her form of address in clinical third person, even by tailoring to the lock-and-key diarised fashion of frivolous journal entries. _

_Simply and sanely, she concerns herself not with the arrant futility of frittering away premature hours of owl light as the drenched tip of quill scrawls errant with reckless abandon._

_Neither second nor minute could be discerned from the shattered remains of chronometric apparatus._

_Bleeding lines of ink just now begin to inspissate and adhere to the infinitesimal network of interstices comprising fractured remains. _

_‘_Why fix or replace what is never truly broken?’

_Suffice to say, the afflicted clock was one of many memories preserved as mnemonic testament to her resilience of thought and thew. _

_History was indeed a painful reminder, but a reminder nonetheless. _

* * *

_And in her quest to seize a new Eden, she’s yet to learn that only the serpent freely roams. _

_A new Asphodel to blight with thrashing Joe Blakes._

_Age in spades vies for a place to call home. _

_ _A cliché for the ages. _ _

__<strike>E.T. phone home....</strike> _ _

* * *

_Escape was critical._

_Escape from this concrete jungle and its stifling internment._

_To exist and survive without navigating the myriad mazes of masquerade. _

_She needed expiry without the open casket, befriending maggots in a slipshod cemetery of cardboard forts with excreta as effective, if not noisome, insulation._

_Ultimately, suffocating by ventilation. _

_And yet...._

_Deigning to resign to such odium of ophidious camouflage could only imply an estranged shred of relation._

_From dalliance manifests a carnal compulsion of manic duplexity, unbeknownst to pathos._

_In her cunning attempts at seduction, the demoiselle opines that willing surrender to the Styx river is adequate currency for its taxing bridge toll._

_Nolens volens, her menial libation of abject poverty is lowly and unrequited. _

_The man she sees with closed eyes is a dubious yet vaguely familiar operator of differential equation. _

_Stoical yet sensuous, his voice beckons. _

_By the same token, what should frighten and deter only compels her further to the charming gaggle of incubi. _

_From the recesses of preconscious, the voice coaxes a murmur of cognisance, and with this knowledge her stringent passage is rife with absolution._

_A proper, intrepid venture of trial and execution._

* * *

_Sempiternally, Gotham’s fuscous topography was duly infamous for endemic scandal and licensed liberation of misconduct. _

_Where the piteous third estate of mainland propensity would balk and jeer at any mention, proposing unanimous vote to purge the city of all its pathogens, Dibé was a zestful outlier in her whimsy. _

_An indomitable gale of curiosity possessed her at the mere broach of obloquy. _

_Casual exchange of the word as a household name during gallivants through the Red Light District would leave her insatiate for a modicum of taste. _

_Forsooth, the Entertainment District of her squalid borough was but a pale imitation of semblance to the competing island’s irrepressible allure. _

_If Banwa was the pursy oligarch’s lubricious touch of heaven, Gotham was sure to be God himself, fingering her within an inch of her measly life with the unrivalled potency of his impossibly large pollux. _

_But, how, she wonders, could one hope to infiltrate the fiery depths whilst retaining the clinging pneuma of an exiled saint? _

_Well, what better way to assimilate than by spreading the disease that fuels hate for our delicate rank and file? _

_What better way to start fresh than to impersonate a penniless scapegrace, basting down the pearly gates of Gotham’s most influential orphan to date?_

_Someone who, in spite of privilege, has a remarkable métier for withstanding the cumbering umbrage of bereavement and smothered desolation in rivulets of riveting sob stories from the odd scarecrow or mudlark. _

_Yes.... _

_**Mr. Wayne**. _

* * *

_I’ve heard you have a yen for stray cats._

* * *


	2. I Origins

There was something undeniably risible in the manner of which Wayne Manor primed itself a complicit safe haven for star-crossed lovers of vagrancy.

A wildering trip down memory lane revisits the adolescent landlord’s experiential “experiment” with his _dearest_ grimalkin in securing a spot in the Guttersnipe Club à la Salty Spitoon.

....That, and gaining brownie points for his goth crush.

But, that was beside the point. 

Understandably, Alfred was eager to voice objection to the worrying normalcy of eccentric characters seeking sojourn.

By good fortune, the gallant young Icarus under his protective wing was wont to ease truculent nerve and give every visitor the benefit of the doubt, just as eager to disregard all incident of error from their preceding saga of misprisions.

For every Jerome Valeska there was sure to be yandere Punchinellos sporting an exceedingly bizarre obsession for the Bruce Waynes of this queer dimension. 

At any rate, the lofty estate was Gotham’s only bona fide means of terrene transit, both by entry and exit.

Should less fortunate passengers essay to seek greener pastures, Bruce would ever endeavour to be the assenting conductor, should ever almsgiving be the repugnant source of contention. 

* * *

“Bruce! For fuck’s sake, open a damn zoo already!”

* * *

Propitiously, his _coup de foudre_ wouldn’t require much persuading in that department. 

* * *

The solemn plea for help was grossly implicit, buskin of thespian performance nothing short of encore for the opera and its gluttonous olio of grass roots.

Astonishing what a simple cloak, grime and illusion of frail frame could do to thieve a specie of sympathy. 

Sharp as a retractable shiv and prick as a Great Dane’s ear, it was not the obverse of the coin preening hackle but rather the vigilant reverse that risked shrivelling her impetuous facade to a fibril. 

She couldn’t help the slight hazard of adrenaline coursing in stasis as she waited patiently, but no less keenly, for invitation.

Of all things to be perturbed by, obsequious butlers with coarsened military backgrounds were most salient. 

Vigilant by vocation.

Venomous by trade.

Woe to any tax evader if a sudden career change inveigled him to actuary.

Or, God forbid, _financial forensics analyst_. 

Notwithstanding, cowardice began verging to annoyance at the poking blague of being swiftly ushered away by a brusque English brogue, the singular souvenir of her impression being an officious echo of “Oi’s and innit’s” in haunting succession. 

* * *

As luck would have it, the trained assassin-manservant was not her harsh, greeting sun of first light.

Concerning, but not enough to warrant suspicion.

With the hour pealing a quarter past nine, he was certain to be adding finishing touches to an extravagant brunch of grilled cheese and Branston Pickle, what have you.

The toilworn diaphragm is immediately given to decompress in relief at fortuitous gesture of acknowledgment to dowdy encroachment.

A lignified portal of admission opens gingerly to betray (elegant??) proportions approximately ten or so inches below expected height of a certain _valet de_ _chambre_.

Patently feminal, to boot. 

Ipso facto, the not-so-welcoming couple of frown and quirk of brow was almost like looking at a clear reflection. 

If not for 2C curls, hazel eyes and stark contrast in complexion, Dibé would have been delighted to find kindred spirit in her weary glare. 

After a few beats of awkward deliberation betwixt both parties, the girl abruptly shouts to seize crude hist of a house attendee.

* * *

Upon emphatic mention of “Bruce”, her havering mind is finally put at ease.

* * *

“....Don’t I know you?”

Initially, Dibé pretends not to register the query, desiring but a moment’s wind to respire the condensed opulence of her foreign displacement in habitat. 

Louis Comfort Tiffany did little to comfort her agitated brood of reservations, scrutinising any glass of its make from a safe distance, lest she absolve her peccadilloes by means of grounded defenestration. 

Still and so, the steady stride beside her continues to convey scrutiny with narrowed gaze, chancing upon spare stab at conversation.

“Probably goes without saying... but you shouldn’t trust people so easily.”

Interrogation chamber upends transfiguration as mog twosome arrive to what appears to be the main study of imperial demesne. Ascending the west of celestial coordinates, a hearth crackles a low flame; to the east, a glorious array of literature commands undivided attention, smugly successful in titillating her bluestocking libido with poetic parallels to Dante’s _Inferno_. 

Suspended within the projector’s cigarette burn of woolgathering, Dibé truncates a tavern yarn of riposte, settling to recline in one of two Sheraton sofas with full view of double French doors leading to infantile radiance. 

Additionally, the sight of a particular tabby-jane hybrid in question was inclined to contort and lounge lazily along one arm of the adjacent couch, visibly bored yet somehow expectant. 

”Spending all that time loitering in dank alleys makes all the mucky faces blur at some point. Lees. Dregs. Why do you think they call it a cesspool.” 

“_Wow_.”

The girlish alley cat’s sarcastic, monotone retort is met with a slight raise of brow, followed by playful furrow.

“Now that I think about it... you’re a _lot_ like a girl I know. Except... you’re definitely the smart one.”

“Are you ready, Selina? I discovered a time window. In the next hour or so, the gala should be scheduled for maintenance and—“

_And there he was...._

* * *

_Dressed to the nines in rich, Stygian raiment, introducing the interceding owner of stately home, wiry in build, sightly broad stroke of sable, pomade slick, essentially every bit of ‘classically handsome’ by virtue of seraphic, alabaster sea change from milksoppish wean to quintessential paradigm of valour and pertinacity. _

_Without question, the prodigal son of Thomas and Martha Wayne’s Herculean legacy was nothing less of meriting the titular title of ‘Dark Knight’. _

_By that very quality of resplendent predestination, a juvenile fraction of residuum almost envied the stripling’s inherited gene for veneration. _

* * *

“Fancy a stroll on the town, do we? A bit early for debutante balls, innit?”

* * *

_Ah, yes...._

_For what was a newborn man without his proud, doting father?_

_....Or adoptive butler by tragedy, something or other. _

* * *

Whatever happened to Robin being the faithful (less formidable) sidekick?

“Oh, you know. Just fighting crime. Hopping on Robin Hood’s dick. The usual.”

”Well, you can’t very well whip “cream” on an empty stomach, now can you?”

Fractals of splintered light from the ambulatory dining trolley present an element of overture as the living cloak of tenebrosity displaces before aberrant visitation of stiff, courteous seating, one sylphlike arm extended in greeting. 

“Welcome to Wayne Manor. Rest assured. You’re safe here.”

* * *

_But when thou givest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth._

* * *

Relating in kind, she submits to felicitous bind.

Her laugh lines, inviting; right hand warm with firm inkling to peace of mind. 

Be that as it may, the felis _was_ right in her advice.

For all his cordial faculty, that tender, solicitous smile was far too benign for her chronic kidney of acedia. 

Far too _patronising_ for her inveterate Pyrrhonism. 

* * *

Thus, the intimate triptych of musketeers find themselves disposed to light refection.

But, what, pray tell, was to become of the proverbial black sheep?

_Was_ there sufficient gambit to wield for an unctuous fourth wheel? 

* * *

“Apologies if treacle and cheese are a noisome merger. Master Bruce and I weren’t expecting visitors. ...Rather arbitrary. If you don’t mind my survey.”

The footman’s pointed leer fails to go unnoticed by Dibé as the raven-haired boy of rebuke is thoroughly unmoved by this stock exchange. In return, Bruce offers her a small smile in tacit alliance, evoking a mite of surprise with gleaming eyes at the following utterance.

“The guest room’s been collecting dust for some time, has it not?” 

Alfred was in the process of arranging three plates of china atop the mahogany coffee table, one of which was covered with a cloche. 

Selina observes this peculiarity with a slight smirk and eyeroll, mirroring Dibé’s silent amusement as the dish was, as a matter of course, reserved for Bruce, who even had two olives erected from toothpicks positioned at the centre of either diagonal triangle of toasted yeast.

Naturally, Mr. Pennyworth is not the least bit earnest to once more indulge his adoptive son/employer’s abiding commitment to eleemosynary, ad nauseam. 

”I suppose you’re right, sir.” 

His gruff tone, stern yet polite. 

“But, I’m afraid we’ve yet to address the miniature elephant in the room.”

Dibé can say with certainty that she favours the man’s curt demeanour compared to the current look of practiced civility disguising a genuine phizog of condescension. 

“Why, we haven’t been apprised of the damsel’s name. Dibé, is it? Yes, that’s well and all. But, what of family name, eh? You haven’t forgotten your roots, have you?” 

”_Alfred_.”

A fugitive daze of bad faith accentuates the wrinkles between stony eyes. In a matter of hypnotic severance, the butler straightens and clears his throat. 

“Right you are. My apologies, Master Bruce. Dibé.”

A terse nod of concession. 

“And how long might we be expecting our guest?”

Soon after uttering this feigned inquiry, a triforce of nebulous appraisal promptly anchored her with due diligence, conjuring farraginous wraiths of scoptophobia.

As if impelled to mystique by brume of leery suspense, embers from the hearth began abating in swift sedation, avifauna petering out to dulcet lull; the ultraviolet’s tedious lineal orbit of luminosity swaying verdure of dulcifying symphony.

Still and all, any spirited voice of reason was chary to expectorate, holding these inchoate truths to be self-evident.

Dibé had effectively surfeited the grandfather clock’s incessant mockery, wanting nothing more than to seek bedding beneath the pendulum in hopes of being espoused by acephalous awakening. 

Happily contingent on mannered exposition, Bruce, ever the poster child for goodwill, aspires to brand sense to the senseless. Moving heaven and earth to give voice to severed tongue and see distance give way to fellow feeling.

In gnawing the teeming viscera of vacillation, this patron saint of hagiography bids his tarried nobility for a song. 

What sorcery it was for his cleaving utterance to _not_ sound so decidedly wrong. 

“Qui ne fait pas quand póte, nu face cand vrea.”

  


In other words, Dibé was here to stay. 

  


“In other words.... _verisimilitude trumps precaution_.”

  
  


* * *

_Her jailor’s key was two a penny; rent for one, well and done._

_To jilt the waxing heart of swain, she steals a kiss from loaded gun. _

_For in this cage, the beasts were tame; the bars and deadbolt sleazy._

_The jailor grieves, concedes to release...._

* * *

  
  


_If only pretending wasn’t so easy. _


	3. Butts and Bounds

Denatured skin, gore, marrow. Sweat. Mucous. Rotgut. Addled eggs. Insoluble dregs. Festering wounds. Necrotising viscera. Unwashed cunt, cock. Stools of Durian. 

All scents one would expect to accompany seedy brothels and feculent dive bars. Like estranged Siamese twins conjoined once more by fate, a mélange of strangely enticing fragrances accost the olfaction upon humid entrance to fulgurating hues of UV black light. On level stage, an ensemble could be heard covering muted notes of Duke Ellington, “Sweet and Pungent”. 

For a place christened “Iceberg Lounge”, it never quite seemed to avow honour to origins. At least, as far as Arctic climes were concerned. Barring irony of allusion to global warming, perhaps it was the Friday night full house that reigned victorious in ablating the gelid matter to subaqueous solution. If anything, the night club’s owner of ill repute deserved singular acclaim to its gimmick namesake.

Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot was every bit of pint-sized and irascible as Napoleon before him. 

Ad hominem, it was often argued that Fish Mooney, one of Gotham’s many notorious kingpins, was culpable for begetting the little imp burgeoned today to his fowl sobriquet. 

As a veritable ‘iron fist in a velvet glove’, it would not have been uncommon for his former sadist of an employer to subject him to menial tasks with an extreme taste for absurdity, such as evinced by re-enacting the Protestant Reformation, on especially uneventful weekdays, where dogsbody Oswald would be ordered to nail sticks of butter and margarine to the walls of _ her _ nightclub, only to have him scour the melting remains. Namely, by means of saliva and utility of coarse tongue, repurposed to depurating disinfectant. 

(Hence the teeth’s jaundiced cariosity.)

Regarding the coroner’s morbid dissection, it would be more accurate to say that Mooney’s prevailing absence was indication of her demotion as one of the city’s most forbidding crime bosses, adjacent to the likes of Vincent “Sal” Maroni and Don Carmine Falcone. 

Oswald had been a subversive champion in rising against his crime family of antagonised oppressors. Tawdry though his methods may have been, his ambition and motley palette for revenge were laudable in spite of shrill elocution. 

Yet, for all his seasoned shit fits and fawning appeals to Oedipus, the 5’6” manchild was quite the endearing host.

A year ago, he held Fish Mooney’s umbrella. Now, the termagant was (purportedly) dead by his hand. Directly and indirectly. Along with Maroni. Falcone was presumed to be hibernating, all businesses forfeited to Cobblepot’s management. What was erstwhile a servile umbrella, now repurposed to redoubtable cane. 

They all had been inclined to underestimate him. 

Who “they” implied was disposed to whether or not your name was absent from his scroll of interminable blood feuds. 

Said rakish, sanguinary humanoid of the evening could be seen approaching with wary focus, accompanied in lame stride by <strike>registered trademark</strike> signature penguin gait, a foible of which Dibé was vaguely familiar via stale iteration of hyperbolised tabloid narrative. Viz., a byproduct of raking through the funny pages. 

Dibé tries (and fails) to be none the wiser to the flightless bird’s obvious intrigue to her rigid, self-effacing form, partially concealed by adumbrated booth of vacancy. 

Proximity yields favour to the castling as imposing duet of limp and cane find their footing in command, platform elevating his stake for weightage. 

Despite his Pygmy stature, he certainly was not one to be trifled with. In spite of cautious reprieve, temptation was no less a challenge in resistance. 

“_ You’re not from around here.” _Narrowed pupils and severe crow’s feet punctuate his steady conviction. 

“How—“ 

_ Could you possibly know that? _

“_Small world_.” This sally is met by a sneer even more severe than the last. 

“_Is this seat taken?_” His query laced with condescension, taking liberty to fill vacancy. 

A slender jaw ticks on tenterhooks, lips pressing free from vanity, belying subcurrents of glaring displeasure. Peering innocent through truncated lashes prompts an unamused snort from tapered beak.

For a brief spell, Oswald peruses her dainty features, his own beginning to soften ever so discreetly. He and that homicide of mothers, Tabitha, were vindictive siblings by kismet, but prevaricating he’d be if he couldn’t cast aside petty grievance to yield forgiving eye of aesthetic to pleasing countenance. 

Needless to say, the nubile stray pronounced a vague fraternal likeness to the pernicious dominatrix. Natheless, the only niggling discrepancy of affinity was a blatant infringement upon personal hygiene. A chink that could easily be rectified, if she was anything like another palisade of womanly bent. The permuted avatar of Mother Nature. 

“I apologise for the underbred trespass of voluntary seclusion.” 

The bird’s propensity for panache does little to ease tension. 

“Understandably, Gotham’s a bit wary of offcomers from the mainland. Waif or otherwise, your cryptic coloring leaves much to be desired. The powers that be have a tendency to send their _ darling _ Fourth Estate to paint our town as a scandalous tourist resort. Let’s just say that all… 10 million or so of us, are _ deeply _ acquainted. So, please. Do pardon any _ spasmodic _incursions on your person.” 

Politely, Dibé gives a slight nod of assent. It was clear he was not in the business of relenting in behest to signals of distress.

“As the Bard of Avon once said, ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’, so I’ll be _ poetically _ brief…. Are you affiliated in any way with a woman by the name of Fish Mooney?”

It was inevitable. Her sarcasm detector was shrieking.

“Shouldn’t a certified PI be qualified to warrant interrogation?”

_ Law enforcement just be hiring anyone, huh. _

Steely eyes strain in frustration. An incurably asinine question. 

“My dear…. why _ uphold _ the law when you can _ be _the law?”

An unvoiced expletive scolds her for not holding tongue. As comeuppance, rhetoric surrenders to self-serving monologue.

“I was supposed to be this city’s king. Mayoral Suite in City Hall, dedicated to a reliable system of organized crime. “_ Pax Penguina _ ”. And what would a kingdom be without a compass of metaphysicality? Any king worth his pence needs to possess a modicum of omniscience to his subjects. In essence, I aspire to do what that termagant starfish couldn’t. Naught but a damp squib in my mother’s womb, an oath was whispered: ‘_Answer to no one but yourself, Oswald. There is power in your name. _ _**Divine** _ _power._’”

Candidly speaking, the man was undoubtedly ethereal. His flair for febrile animation was impressive as it was mesmeric. His countenance, a symmetrical, aquiline harmonisation of pulchritude. Conclusion: Oswald was a certified Duracell bunny residing in the augmented breast of Ulta Beauty. 

“At my most vulnerable, there was a time when _Fish _would have been considered a second mother to me.” A glint of sincerity brightens his eye. “_‘Make this city yours, or burn it to the ground’_. ….Her last dying words.”

He pauses. Waiting with bated breath to seize reaction from his poker-faced victim of logorrhoea. Her stiff-necked stoicism galvanises his barbed tongue further to urtication. 

“Me and the harridan might not have been on the best of terms. But I believe I owe it to her to _not _reduce this city to cinders with her treasured remains lost beneath the rubble. Premature as her demise was, the legacy she left behind was not for naught. After all, her sphacelate gills keep the criminals of Gotham _gasping _in rapture!” 

A pinch of said rapture was demonstrated by his creasing, Cheshire grin. 

“In a way, my contortionist leg could say she _shaped _me into the man I am today.”

*ba-dum-tss*

“But, what use is there dwelling in the past?” He ponders with a lilt of glee. 

Dramatic pause.

“I _ am _the king of Gotham.”

Dibé’s blank gaze penetrates, glazed with a savoury pâté of watery boredom. Granted, she’d admit, he expressed the bromidic diction of a politician, albeit more readily narcissistic, making this gregarious ordeal all the more harrowing; already exhausting of the beaky freak’s brood of histrionic quirks. 

Equipped she was not for the travails of prolonged social engagement. 

“Into the bargain, I _ ask… _ because you appear to bear…. _ some _ physical relation. ....One can never be too safe.”

Was that cause for offense or compliment?

Moreover, what was the deal with Clayface being her nebulous alter ego, incognito?

In any case, as much as she desires to indulge in character, her conscience wars to bestow prominence to gentility.

“No, Mr.—“

“Kapelput. Penguin, preferred.”

“I swear on all Frankensteined Gothamites, I’ve no knowledge nor affinity to this mystery woman you speak of. ….I’m from the mainland, remember.”

Victoriously, in dazzling daze, he beams, grinning from ear to ear. 

“_And there’s my confession._”

The cryptic jubilance of his content lingers, veering into ominous profile as he satisfies one final scan of scrutiny to her veil of form. 

“_Well…. Enjoy your stay.” _

In the spirit of Happy Feet, he’s more than obliged to take leave. Regardless, twisted footfall has him limping several or so steps before turning on heel, assessing her for a terminal stretch. 

“Normally, I wouldn’t be so humane…. but believe me when I say that this—“. Gesturing to her thrifted tatters. _ “Disguise, _is rather ill-fitting. ....Pardon my P’s and Q’s, but aren’t you in the springtime of life? Or is pretense all the rage for today’s youth?”

Now the bird was mocking her. 

More importantly…. how old was he again?

“Interesting. I’d like to know where Mr. Lifeguard was when underage patrons were drowning in 80 proof with zero adult supervision.”

Jouncing tousles of dirty blonde curls snake into view. Tonight’s attire is a shocking (but not surprising) contrast to the regal threads of satin adorned during early hours. By the by, it appeared Oswald was right about everyone being acquainted. Evidenced by he and the young girl’s chummy engagement. 

“_Kit Kat…. _How convenient!” 

Sardonicism meter: _ hors concours. _

“Let me guess. _ You’re _ here to recreate that fanciful night in _ glorious _ Technicolor because _ you _ missed out on _ all _ the youthful gaiety.”

Introducing the incomparable Mr. Cobblepot: Gotham’s Neurotic Histrionic. 

“_Furthermore_, if I recall, it was sugar baby here that was a liability, _ not me. _”

“Sugar baby” was, at present, distracted by Dibé’s adumbrated occupation in the booth, who was ever in favour of the subtle joys provided by people watching. 

“Dibé?”

Unfading though it may be, she represses her craving curiosity to anatomise, and even savour, the limpid measure of surprise lacing his tender tone. Residual worry bedded beneath the placid tongue. 

Yet, she thinks it suspect. 

No mere coincidence. 

Replacing Oswald in tenancy, the intrusive sense of unnerve peals its solemn plea for attention. 

A deceptive, if not irrational, touch of paranoia was creeping, but there existed only a scruple of doubt.

_ Someone was watching. _

“As soon as we left the gala, I wondered why you weren’t in the town car. We were searching for hours. Alfred told me you disappeared. ….I was worried.” 

Having exhausted the smokescreen of concealment, she leans forward into dim lambency of unveiling, feigning levity to juxtapose his indelible cleft of gravity. 

“Well, here I am.” Reassuring with awkward pretense of humour. “Fit as a flea.”

Extraversion was gravely antithetical to her pococurantism. Triumphant she was in mitigating the bane of social courtesies with practice, but it was by nurture that even the chameleon was susceptible to impermanence. 

As if summoned by claim, an insect akin in size to a flea (that is to say, _ a fly_), cleaves a landing strip between them. Only she notices the trite attempt at distraction. 

_ An old chestnut. _

“Little word of counsel to your voice of unease… maybe not the best choice of confession with your girlfriend within earshot.”

The first real concession of comedy threatens to pierce his solemn veneer of tragedy in the form of mousy simper.

“Selina and I…”

Heated contention deafens his denial to a blur. Adjacent to tranquility, agitation contests in frivolous quarrel.

“_Really_? You’d kick a poor, defenseless girl to the curb?”

Oswald’s hallmark, sarky stretch of lip evokes a sense of normalcy to bickering commerce. 

“Because anyone and anything in this city is just fodder to be gutted and dumped for double-dealing. And here I thought you had a soft spot for children. Maybe homunculi. ….Or dwarfs in solidarity.” 

“Am I supposed to beg-pardon?” Penguin fleers. “Yes, allow me to express regret for being Gotham’s _ upstanding _ citizen in exposing and eradicating the _ vermin _ of our great wen _ . _”

“You mean like you.'' Selina counters, cringing in mock disbelief. 

Oswald huffs through puckered nostrils, patience running thin as strands of Japanese silk. <strike>As if there was some Grindr booty call he was anxious to attend. </strike>

“_A mouse is only as innocent as the cheese it thieves._ You, of all people, should know that.”

Before Selina could offer rebuttal, two shapely silhouettes approach. One of two reveals as a pixie blonde. Fierce mien. Vampish. Choice of tailor is spunky with biker chic and “fuck-me Sunday” pumps. Her seasonable appearance, a nearing quotation of mediation. 

“Selina.”

Giving shrewd once-over to Penguin, she offers a second greeting, heedless to the single shaft of light illustrating its two supporting characters. 

“_Chester.” _

The Penguin’s reactionary beak shows wrinkled affront to the woman’s acknowledging sobriquet of abridged, _ invidious _ reveal of middle name. He’d make a mental note to confront a certain ex-fiancé/gumshoe for breach of confidentiality. 

Pro tem, he concedes to a dry smile, raising hand to strutting departure whilst turning back to the three idle youths. 

“_Exhibit A. _”

Sardonicism is soon displaced to costive dignity when something akin to sincere apology slithers from tongue. Appearing to have friendly relations with a certain trust fund vigilante seemed enough to rescind any reservations. 

“_What I said _ ….” His tally of wrinkles crease with effort. “Before being so _ rudely _interrupted—“

“_Wait… _.” Selina mutters, loud enough for Bruce and Dibé to take notice.

Her catlike phizog is partially obscured, body angled to the club’s bar centrepiece. (<strike>Pardon the narrator’s revision to interior design. Belatedly, she’s reminded that the bar area is, indeed, in the upstairs cavity.</strike>) Leonine eyes transfix in mien as scarce as hen’s teeth, expanding incredulous with fascination. 

“Oh, you have _ got _ to see this.” 

Dibé falls in line to two heads gravitating. 

Two bats of perplexity flit across Selina’s corvid lashes as she snorts in amusement. 

“_No fucking way_.”

* * *

Indigo and mulberry effulgence continue their gyrating precession in tranquilised declension. Preoccupations of live entertainment give way to the threadbare seams of an improvised series of unfortunate events. Depending on matters of preference in the realm of carnal knowledge, “unfortunate” may be incorrect in assessment. 

“Beyond the pale” was all the tour d’horizon needed to describe. For Gotham’s standards, this lurid display of pulp fiction was all the more unseemly. 

Amidst the brume of mystery, intrigue, equal parts apathy and entropy, the sonorous timbre of one brawny, stalwart bystander succeeds in vocalising everyone’s discombobulated thoughts.

“Is that…. ** _Zsasz_ **?”

* * *

Dibé couldn’t be presumptive of identity, but if the lean, bald-pated terpsichorean, currently entertaining drunken audience in the raw, was any indicator, the syllogism was _ heavily _ implied. 

“_Asdfghjkl_!_” _

In his puerile, zygotic career as a nightclub owner, Oswald had witnessed many a spectacle of aggressively imbibed altercation. There he had been, to share the lurching, sophomoric embarrassment on behalf of vertiginous clientele three sheets to the wind in variegated plashes of technicolour yawn. 

As if the quiet earth had instantly been incited to unleash a terrible flare of jerking retrograde, those preceding seizures of idiosyncrasy couldn’t hold a torch to whatever aberration of nature the universe expectorated tonight. 

Of all nights for Gabe to be AWOL, appointing him as surrogate mediator, _Victor Zsasz_ was the last mercenary frondeur he’d expect to expel from junction. Appertaining to current pother of demand, attendant by salacious euphemism, it would be germane to say that Oswald was _ not _ anticipating unadulterated, rakehell, pornographic exposition to, you guessed it... _**Victor’s** **Ass**_. 

“_Have you lost mind?!_ _Get down from there right this instant!”_

Oswald’s offspring of tantrum is, withal, worthy of adoration, as evinced by the pointed erection of his cane in chastisement, effectively channeling the possessive pneuma of a bodach with fanaticism to lawns that criminalises doting eyes to capital punishment. (Bish whet?)

In spite of his discretion, Penguin is helpless to the faint flush tinting his cheeks with what could only be depicted as aroused mortification. 

<strike> It was a rather impressive endowment. </strike>

“…._ And for the love of all unholy, make yourself decent! _”

Oswald intimates his reprimand all the while inconsiderate to the patent pair of nude leather underwear adorning Mr. Zsasz’s majestic, lubricated sheen of (ass)ets.

With the penguin in phallic palsy, one could say they worked just as well as incendiary weapons.

Admittedly, the lewd band of material vanishing through compressed crevice of nates left little to the imagination as the wearer’s enticing, lithe form accentuated his designer thong in amateur performance of Chippendales’ passing fancy. 

“Sorry, everyone!”

The twitching imprint begs to differ. 

“You’ve been a lovely crowd! But, before I leave you to welter in lobotomised hedonism…. First and foremost, let’s give a round of applause to Oswald providing us with proper interlude.”

Crickets. 

Infesting the niterie and its languid inhabitants within an impregnable cocoon. As if to spotlight this abject degree of crowd ennui, several or so bar occupants, in addition to a slow waltzing couple, could be seen collapsing to a heap in maudlin stupor. 

An off the wall, cartoonish “_Bald_!” volleys in isolated tenor. 

“Libations to Bacchus also work. _ Look_. I just want all of you to know that _ this _ ,” he proclaims, spanning the length of his toned, porcelain build. “Was _ actually _ intended for a _ very _ special lady. Said she’d be here. Tall? Nudist? Gingery? Has more of a thing for plants than me. ….But, oh how she _ loves _ me.” 

Seeing as the unpunctual lady of the evening was nowhere to be found, Oswald was more than pleased to provide attendance. That is to say, his stealthy creeping to greeting the ample mounds from behind (pun intended) resulted in a clamant, emphatic poke of ferule, inflicting comical injury to Zsasz’s right buttcheek. 

Bruce had long since returned to standing by Selina’s side. They turn to each other, exchanging a shared frequency of knowing looks. 

“_ Ivy._”

Dibé looks between them. In a state of unthinking bliss, a brilliant, exultant smile breaks free, ultimately fracturing her Dunkirk spirit. Tessellating eyes mirror and map the barmy scene unfolding; contorting within itself, gleefully; a chaotic, terrible crescendo of glistering, Bohemian rhapsody.

With Oswald prodding a prancing Zsasz to exile, the outré carnival pronounces curtain to festivities.

* * *

The walk back to Wayne Manor was fraught with misplaced delay. Even if she _ did _ accept a ride back home in Bruce’s _splendiferous_ town car, she’d have rather wished to avoid being implicitly, né utterly, berated and hovered by his Argus-eyed butler. 

Of course, Selina had insisted on assisting her solo march through uncharted territory but she managed to instill conviction in her ability to withstand danger. Even succeeding in convincing her own conscience of notable street smarts. Therein, her reservations were well grounded. Contrary to popular belief, being bred in corruption did not guarantee the make of a full-fledged survivalist. 

As if to underscore this truth with gaudy, highlighter streak, fragrant notes of light air and scented pinecones descend in octave to chilling spell of sensory deprivation. In the second it takes to hasten pace from portentous call of vicinal alleyway, discretion is deftly plunged into gelid rift of swelling darkness. 

* * *

With a soft snarl ghosting along the shell of her ear, Dibé finds herself being pressed firmly against wet brick, a lithe form wasting no time in intimate embrace, wiry arms securing hers from behind in vise grip. Slim hips insinuate against the taut fabric of her mini dress, friction threatening to produce an anomalous sound of encouragement. 

_ Of all times to be aroused…._.

Lucky for her to have the stranger derive some droll amusement from a low sigh _ literally _ tongue-in-cheek to dampened slab. Haplessly, in the same breath, displeasure quickly replaces her captor’s fickle merriment as a nimble hand restricts any further utterances from seeking passage. Perspiration clings like dew to pubescent grass roots, traces of briny essence seeping through the seam of her mouth, tendrils of hair tickling her scalp with the motions provided by ragged breathing. 

By adherence to a vestigial whisper of virtue, silence seemed to be recurring theme, body language proclaiming the miming pulse of communication, section of corridor so secluded from full radiance of gibbous moon, thereby darkened to Cimmerian shade. 

She curses internally for responding to the following sensuous roll. A low chuckle vibrates; his inaction, both unsettling and beguiling. Pitch black ambience effects a modicum of heightened sense, effectively yielding the reins to autopilot; conveniently easy if her analytical mind was correct in predicting the assaulter’s composition of build: taller than her by a foot precisely, reasonably lissome and limber for obtrusive performance.

To wit, a description that encompassed the body type of which she was hopelessly, if not exclusively, magnetised. 

(<strike>Watch out, Oswald.</strike>)

But, of course, as the adage goes, all good things must come to an end; eerily and ironically so in this queer turn of events as the foreign body, with huffing urgency, relieves her of invasion, essentially leaving bitter currents of Autumn zephyr in wake of jilted caress. 

With misgiving at the forefront of weak bearing, she’s almost too paralysed to retaliate in confrontation, receptive to the reeling comfort zone of staring contest with moldering brick wall, all the while contending to restore overwrought nerves and meteoric thoughts. 

Symphonies of stumbles and fumbles, posterior; laterally. Suspense giving rise to frothing bile. Movement ceases. Breaths still. 

Still, she waits. _ Anticipates _her hapless fate. 

* * *

_ “Hey, kid!” _

At first, she remains stunned, knowing the timbre couldn’t have matched her supposed aggressor, yet content in expressing tacit gratitude to who, she could only hope, was a dark knight. An irony made all the more absurd by her oblivious response to two blinding flashes of light strobing through the murk. 

“Miss? …._ You alive? _”

After countless seconds of rumination, simmering in a roiling vat of butterflies steeped in stomach acid, she wasn’t quite at ease to be greeted by a pyknic, broad in the beam, quadragenarian male sporting detective garb, fedora cherry-topping bedraggled mop of head. 

“Of course she’s alive, Harvey.” 

She could practically relish the annoyance emanating from an adjoining man’s retort. 

“Did you get a good look at our guy?”

The man named Harvey points his flashlight accusingly to the root of inquiry, illuminating his fettered source of pestilence. 

“Hm. Let me think. Dank alleyway with visibility that makes Tartarus seem like a standard midnight cakewalk to my kitchen. Provided I left said cake as a weight to conceal my overdue light bill, one could say I could do it blindfolded. In summary, that’s a no, Jim. Why would we? For some average lowlife sicko trying to get his rock’s off? And before you accuse me of being an apologist, as you can see…” The spalpeen has now made habit of blinding innocent bystanders. “Our little damsel in distress is none the worse for wear.”

The shorter, but no less appealing, brunette isn’t entirely convinced. All the same, he was surely the more well disposed compeer. 

“Ma’am. If you want to press charges, my partner and I will be more than happy to help. A decent visual was probably beyond your scope. But, any description would be useful.”

** _Any_ ** _ description? _

“Yeah. Absolutely. Because this island isn’t just a loony’s retreat _ without _ the proprietary institutions. Tell me again why we’re sleuthing around in the dead of night for a gang of fanatic street kids?”

“Jerome and his followers are still at large. Haven’t you heard? Rumour has it the maniac’s impersonating his disciples. With Strange’s help, no doubt.”

“I _ have_. In fact, I’m the only one with half a mind to consider that she might be one of them. ”

Dibé is once more shrouded in obscurity, bearing witness to lancing lights engaged in senseless sparring. 

“Do you recall the bonding exercise we had? When I was the “madcap, cocksure” rookie? The one where I try to knock some sense into that drunken leprechaun by calling you—“

“‘A slovenly, lackadaisical cynic’. Thanks for the reminder, Doc. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s play daycare and call it a night. Don’t know how much longer I can stomach this night patrol search party for by-blow clowns. I’d rather be taking my midnight stroll through the whisky cabinet.”

If she was annoyed, it didn’t show. If she was, shoulders would’ve dropped in exhaustion. If adults had a propensity to behave like children, she didn’t need further incentive to drive her disinterest in parenthood.

All in all, Dibé had quite the history of playing mediator. 

Putting her excellent detective skills to good use, she doesn’t have to inquire to last names with badges reflecting pyrite in the waxing wan. 

“Mr. Gordon…. any questions you have, I don’t mind answering.”

For good measure, she alludes to Bruce and Selina as residential companions. 

“I’m sure my friends won’t mind the absence. Strange as it sounds, I have a habit of wandering about after sunset. ….Makes the night terrors more manageable.” 

Harvey looks pleased in the flaking rays’ heavenly glow. 

“See? How’s that for proof of consent.”

Jim ignores the ludic bodach, gesturing for Dibé to follow in luminating stead. 

Looming omens spectate tentatively from delinquent shadows. Almost a blink away from impressions of peculiar artistry; conspicuous flash of roguish, almond eyes graffitied on the wall nearest Harvey, hysteric grin etched beneath by cachinnations bidding mischievous vale….

* * *

_ CIVILIAN POLICE REPORT _

_ Name: Dibé (???) _

_ Gender: Female _

_ Age: 23 _

_ Hair Color: Dark Brown _

_ Eye Color: Dark Brown _

_ Height: 5’0” (152 cm) _

_ Ethnicity: American Indian/African-American _

_ Sexual assault victim (suspected). _

_ Taken in for questioning regarding possible connection to Jerome Valeska. _

_ Hails from the mainland. _

_ Suspicions raised as to sudden appearance in Gotham. _

* * *

“What if this chick’s an old fling of his? The more I think about, the more she gives off ‘crazy ex’ vibes.”

“If that were the case, the circus would have made mention. Even if she were a former member, the Maniax crew hadn’t been established.” 

GCPD’s precinct was, much to James Gordon’s childhood delight, akin to a ghost town in the hours retired of operation. Since recruitment, his fine eye for design was enamoured by the structure’s Gothic arrangement, complementary to the city’s overall medieval constitution. 

....Okay, he wasn’t _ that _discerning of architecture, but he could at least appreciate artistry. (Courtesy of influence by a divorced art gallery owner.)

“Still think there’s something shady about her. Has a “habit of wandering about after sunset”? Yeah. Sounds _ nothing _like our Merry Andrew in disguise.”

“I’d be inclined to agree. If the records didn’t lie. Gotham isn’t her home. By her account, she arrived here from the mainland. No more than 48 hours ago, by my estimate. What I want to know is how she managed entry with the bridges garrisoned. The city’s under quarantine due to Oswald’s licensing program. No one enters or leaves without authorized clearance.”

“So she’s related to someone here who’s involved with Jerome by proxy…. How long before the psycho gets his own Bible published?”

“I doubt she’s acquainted with _ anyone _, Harvey. ....The dress she was wearing? One of Barbara’s.”

Harvey chokes. Jim clears his throat. 

“….I _ know… _ because she wore it on our second date.” 

“Well, genius. If she’s not acquainted with anyone, why was she fitted in _ your _crazy ex’s wardrobe?”

“Before the assault, Dibé was last seen at the Iceberg Lounge. Knowing Barbara, maternal instinct likely registered some resemblance to Selina and got sentimental....”

Jim drifts off, a bulb of recognition flickering.

“Selina….”

”_More_ ‘crazy ex’ vibes?”

”In the alley... Dibé said her friends wouldn’t mind her absence. Never identified who those “friends” were. If my hunch is correct, that friend count should extend to a certain member of the Billionaire Boys Club. Would make sense considering his estate is the only other means of passage, minus hassle of security. Maybe they can shed some light on Mystique.”

Humming in assent, Harvey procures a snuffbox from his shirt pocket; materialising from interior jacket pocket, a vintage pipe.

Jim, finding this to be atypical, expresses a measure of surprise but ultimately doesn’t question his friend’s aleatory aperçu of craving as the strike of a match harmonises with coruscating street lights through closed blinds. 

“Finally. Something we can agree on. Although, if I’m being honest, I’ll leave it to you to unferment _ that _ pickle. Can’t really see how much I can be of assistance when the kids see you as “cool dad” with me as “creepy, estranged uncle”. But you’ll be hard pressed to file a complaint. More than glad to focus on the clown case if it means I can get more than a nap’s worth of beauty rest.” 

Jim nods a glance to his watch. _ 2:40 AM. _<strike>Acknowledging that it was well past his bedtime.</strike> If he was lucky, the Land of Nod might see fit to spare him from recurring nightmares of “Manscaped Egg” with (surprisingly) lush backside. 

Gathering his blazer and storing Dibé’s file in the desk drawer, he and his Irish confidant submit to hiatus. 

“Commit me to a padded cell, but it’s times like these that I actually miss Ed and his arsenal of riddles.”

Harvey muffles an ardent squall of protest. He’d sooner go cold turkey on Dutch courage for the rest of his barfly forsaken years than ask Nygma for help. FKA “butthurt Poindexter”. 

Still, he feels exceptionally cheeky with the seasonal sway of breeze and trees turning new leaf; in their dual departure, he aims to fill drafty hush with one reverberating note of humour. 

“Recite his name in the mirror thrice and see curse suffice.” 

* * *

_A quarter ‘til before the witching hour encroaches. Two bosom friends, in confident pace, secure of conviction from errant straws in the wind. Abandoned to Weltschmerz, a precinct. Mad keen to dance with scurrilous devils in the pale moonlight. _

_Suspended in shimmering shafts of lunar refulgence, a centrepiece attraction of levitating angst, pronouncing curtain’s unveiling to horror show. _

_Entr’acte to funambulists with two left feet. Contortionists writhing in a gossamer of malaise. _

_For the final act, a fraying scintilla of aerial silks. _

_Billowing in a millpond, bearing gifts, thrashing desperate in hopes that magic lamps weren’t partial to night shifts. _


End file.
